


Dead Boys

by Overtaker



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Purgatory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:28:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27491932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overtaker/pseuds/Overtaker
Summary: Jason died.Dean died too.At an in between place, before they live again, they meet.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester & Jason Todd
Comments: 3
Kudos: 54





	Dead Boys

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting around for several years. I wanted to publish it before Supernatural ends. This is probably it, no continuation.

There is no food in purgatory. There is no hunger, either. The temperature is never too cold or too hot. The body doesn’t seem to react to the cold or the heat when you do make a fire or jump into a cold stream, anyway. There’s no day and no night. Just perpetual cloudy sky with enough light to see everything clearly. No need to relieve yourself, or bury the bodies you make. No need for apologies or politeness. No civilization and no need for one.

Dean likes it.

If it weren’t for Cas, who is in constant danger here, and Benny, who is so desperate to leave, and Sam, who Dean is supposed to take care of- well, Dean isn’t sure what he’d do if he were unburdened by his many responsibilities. But he likes the feel of this place. The simplicity of it. He likes the feel of being hunted and knowing he can survive it. He likes the feel of hunting back and knowing his prey will not survive it. 

Stalking his prey is the only kind of meditation he’s ever enjoyed.

. . .

There is no day and no night. No time passes in this place. But it’s been five ambushes and seven straight on attacks since they met up with Cas. They’re resting for a few hours when they hear the noise of a hunt nearby. Dean goes for his weapon and Cas and Benny get to their feet. They wait for a moment, and it doesn’t take long for them to realize that the hunt will miss them. Probably. Unless they smell Cas and decide to test themselves against him instead.

“Should we move?” Dean asks quietly.

“Probably should start running if we don’t want them to notice our Monster Catnip,” Benny says, with a nod to the Angle.

The Angle, Cas, tilts his head, seeing the hunt in a way neither the human, nor the vampire can really understand. His eyes seem unfocused and then his face turns disapproving in a way that Dean hasn’t seen in what feels like forever.

“We need to stop the hunt.” Cas says.

“Why?” Dean says. “It’s just monsters hunting monsters. Nothing new, right?”

“The small one isn’t a monster,” Cas says.

Dean has the thought of Sam flash through his head, before he remembers that his brother isn’t small anymore. (And that he might ping as a monster on Cas’s angle radar; he’s drunk enough demon blood to not be a normal human.)

“What is it?” He asks, even as he moves towards area the hunt is sounding from.

Benny sighs.

. . .

They run into the hunt before Dean can even ask what Cas means by “multi-universal radiation levels signifying whatever the freaking crap Cas wants them to mean since he’s clearly making words up.” The hunt is just a small group of werewolves. The five of them seem to have treed a teenager.

Cas takes lead. Which is something else that Dean hasn’t seen him do in a while. He walks ahead of them and the werewolves turn to look at them. One, an older man with long graying dark hair and leathery tan skin, gestures at his followers. Two immediately get nearer the tree, making the boy climb up even higher. The other two turn and face Cas with their leader.

“We don’t want any problems here,” The man says. 

“Then why don’t you back away from the boy,” Cas suggests in a tone that makes it clear the suggestion is their only option.

“Now, now,” The man says. “He ain’t any concern of yours. Don’t you got enough trouble lying about now, without asking for more?”

“Man has a point,” Benny mutters softly. Dean will admit that between everyone wanting to hurt the Angle and most things wanting to destroy Dean (Monster Hunters don’t belong in a monster afterlife), they have a lot on their plate. Especially since they are trying to get out of purgatory, which means a lot of traveling. 

But the kid looks maybe fifteen. And he has that dark hair wispy hair that is threatening to curl, just like Sam did at that age. And his torn red shirt and red pants are dirty in a way that means a lot of falls and skinned knees, like Dean’s always were when he’d gotten in a fight he’d lost.

He kind of wants to buy the kid a burger and tell him funny stories until the kid feels safe and happy. So he’s sorta lost it and couldn’t walk away at this point even if Cas tried to back down. (Not that they can at this point. That would be a sign of weakness that would get them killed.)

“How about we just kill you and take the kid?” Dean offers instead. It couldn’t hurt to try.

“How about you leave, and we don’t kill the lot of you and take the kid and the angle?” The werewolf counters.

Benny says a word that the (approximately) fifteen year old probably knows but shouldn’t say.

. . .

There is a lot of blood. It splatters over the three men sort of artistically, Jason thinks. 

One of the furry monster things that might be a werewolf tries to jump up the tree and get him. Then one of the men, the tallest one with the dark hair and a thick beard and broad shoulders, is pulling the monster back down the tree. He’s hissing and showing fangs. For a moment Jason is reminded of a joke from his youth about Batman being a vampire. Then the big man rips the head off of the werewolf. In the splatter of blood, all comparisons to Bruce are lost.

Jason looks down at the monsters who just killed his attackers. From the frying pan into the fire, seems appropriate. So does the phrase ‘bat-freaking-guano, I am in such a mess.’

“You may come down now,” The short man, the one who is probably in charge, says. He’s scruffy, with bags under his eyes, and no weapons. The two monsters he killed went down without blood, just a light shining from the man’s hands. “They are gone.”

Jason holds on tighter to the tree, swinging his legs up onto the branch he was sitting on to crouch on it instead. With more mobility, he feels slightly safer to speak.

“You just killed two men without a weapon. What makes you think I can trust you?”

Jason’s voice is hoarse from screaming earlier. He’d like to drink something cold to help it, but at the same time he doesn’t feel thirsty. He’s scared of what that means.

“They,” the middle man, the blondish one who enjoyed the fight, points to the bodies, “They were werewolf monsters who were hunting you for sport and would have killed you or kept you as a pet if they caught you.”

Jason felt satisfied to the core that he was right about the werewolf thing. He also thought that the phrase ‘pet’ was, in Alfred approved words, ‘terribly worrying’.

“Will you come down here?” The blondish brunette asked. The maybe-vampire had backed away slightly, letting the blond lead the conversation, as had the shorter dangerous one. “You’re hurting my neck, you’re so high up.”

Jason considers that. Then he jumps from his tree perch to the next tree over. He lands neatly, catching the trunk of the tree with one hand and balancing himself with the other as he lands in a new crouch. This branch is lower and to their right. It gives him space enough to jump to the ground and run if he needs to, but also leaves him the option of jumping and grabbing the branch he left if he needs to stay up high. 

“What’da’ya want?” He asks.

The blond man is giving him a fairly disbelieving look. Jason takes the momentary surprise to do a catalogue. None of them moved when he’d made his unexpected jump. Not for their weapons, nor to follow. That’s probably a good sign. The blond shakes his head and turns to check on the other two men. When neither of them move to speak, he turns back to Jason and begins to talk.

“Um, well, you see,” He struggles for a moment and then just looks at Jason. It’s a sorta judgy look. He comes to a decision and then begins again, with much more confidence, “Hi. My name’s Dean and I’m human. These are my friends Benny,” he gestures to the tall, barrel chested man, the one who had fangs, “the vampire and Cas, who is an angle.” He gestures to the shorter man, the scruffy one.

“An angle,” Jason asked. “Like, a real life soldier of justice and mercy from the bible?”

“Yes,” Cas said. Now that Jason had time to listen, his voice sounded a bit like Batman’s did in the cape, all gravelly and deep.

“One of the neighbors in my old apartment, she used to tell us old stories from the bible, growing up,” Jason confessed. “Did you help during the flood?”

“No,” Cas said. “The water did the work, in that instance.”

“Oh,” Jason said, disappointed.

“But,” Cas said, (and wasn’t that a funny name for an Angel), “I did help with the gathering of animals beforehand.”

“Really,” Jason said, more excited now. “ Did you really get all of the animals in there? And is your name really Cas?”

“My name is Castiel,” the Angel said, “And we fit most of the animals in the boat. Not the sea animals, those survived the flood without intervention. And some of the more interesting types of bird and horse were considered superfluous and ignored, but we saved most of the important ones inside.” He considered this for a moment, his face very serious. “Mihiel did lose the one horse with the horns, but we saved the deer and the gazelle so there was no grave loss.”

“Wait,” The blond one, Dean, interrupted, “Are you talking about Unicorns?”

The angel looked at the man, his brow furrowed. It kind of was reminiscent of then Bruce was confronted with extreme emotions and illogical behavior in weird combinations. You know, complete and total confusion with an edge of exasperation.

“Am I dead then?” Jason asked. He was kind of surprised that had left his mouth. He’d been wondering. But he hadn’t felt comfortable really considering it (not when confronted with werewolves). “If you’re an Angel, is this heaven?”

The men looked at him. The Angel opened his mouth to speak but then the blond put a hand on his shoulder. They exchanged a look and Castiel closed his mouth. 

The human was in charge. 

That wasn’t a weird concept for Jason. Superman might run the Justice League, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Batman, the human, could be just as in charge as in charge could be when given half an opportunity. Humans could stand up to some serious heavy hitters. But even then, they weren’t dead humans in an afterlife bossing angels around. That took some serious punch.

“What’s the last thing you remember, kid?” Dean, the totally boss human, asked. “Before you ended up in the forest?”

“A bomb going off,” Jason admitted. That wasn’t too weird a confession for a Gotham kid. He wasn’t giving anything away. But he still felt a slight trace of guilt at the admission. 

“Yeah,” Dean said slowly. He nods and takes his hand off the Angles arm. “So the thing is, this isn’t Heaven. This is Purgatory.” 

Jason swallowed. He hadn’t thought he was so bad. Maybe he could have listened to adults more? And, you know, not stolen quite so much while he was on the streets? But that had been so he could survive. That couldn’t count against him. Then again, maybe he was always destined for a young grave and putting it off by doing bad things wasn’t earning him any bonus points. 

Dang it! He’d been Robin! That ought to have earned at least a little bit of bonus points! Sure he wasn’t the Dick Grayson. But only one man was. He’d done some good!

“-kid,” He realized the blond was speaking to him and had taken a step forward. “Did you get that? Are you okay?”

“Yeah? Um,” Jason swallowed hard and then forced himself to listen, “I’m in Purgatory?”

“Yes,” Dean said. “You’re in Purgatory. But you aren’t supposed to be here.”

Oh. That made more sense. Jason was never in the right place. Of course, he’d get lost on the way to the afterlife.

. . .

Dean looked over the kid, taking in his appearance and rapid breathing. He wasn’t the best at comforting kids. He’d had a decent amount of experience between practically raising his brother Sam and helping out Lisa with Ben the year that they were together. And during hunts he’d always been able to get kids and teens to open up and trust him, but that was a fun mix of desperation and turning to an authority figure, he’d always figured. No matter how much experience he has, comforting kids feels unnatural to him. 

“Cas,” He turns to the angle, “Why don’t you explain what you were saying when we found the kid.”

Castiel nods. Dean should feel guilty ignoring the kid’s panic, but he’d brightened up when Cas spoke before. Dean was trusting his gut. Having Cas explain would be better in this instance than Dean assuring him everything would be okay.

“There are unusual levels of inter-multiversal radiation clinging to you,” Cas noted, gravely. “Have you some experience in falling into parallel worlds? Or perhaps in time travel?”

“Um? Yeah?” the kid said. “I’ve done the cross dimensional thing with some friends once or twice.”

Dean sucked in a breath. 

It wasn’t that he and Sam hadn’t done the ‘cross dimensional thing’ a couple times. But that was because of angles. It wasn’t normal for people to have that experience. Not even other Monster hunters got to go back and forth in time and space like Sam and Dean did. It wasn’t normal. Certainly not at this kid’s age. It spoke to problems in his universe.

“-and that radiation,” Cas was explaining, “confused your soul’s signature when you passed away, meaning that the amalgamation of death in the universes closest to you became confused over where to place you. They may have not even realized you were dead and your soul simply slipped out of that world and fell here.”

“So, what?” The kid asked. “Angles misplaced me and I landed here on random.”

“Angles don’t pick up the dead,” Dean interrupted. “That’s the job of Death’s reapers.” 

Everyone glances at him when he says this. He shifts awkwardly. 

“They’re nice.” He tacks on. “Nicer than most Angles.”

“In our world that is true,” Cas intones, taking back control of the conversation. “I am unsure what system your own world employs. And it wouldn’t be random that you fell here. There was a recent opening of this Purgatory. It happened several times. That alone would mean that anything lost would find this place more easily. However, you also bear a striking resemblance to Dean.”

“No I don’t!” The kid protested. He had a point. His coloring was darker than Dean’s and they shared no similar facial structure. Also, the kid was short and underfed and, you know, a kid.

“Not physically,” Cas agreed. “But your souls share a resonance. It is likely you are what Dean would be, had he been born in your world.”

Dean and the kid look at each other. Dean can see it. Now that he’s looking, he can see it in the way the boy looks him up and down and Dean automatically knows what he’s thinking. He can see it in the way he can just tell how old the kid is. He can see it in the way the boy grips the branch and Dean knows the kid’s about to run.

“What’s your name, kid?” He asks, making sure to keep his voice steady. No pity or sudden affection. The kid calms slightly, less interested in fighting from what he sees in Dean.

“I don’t know if I should tell you,” the Kid says. Dean waits him out. The kid’s thinking. He’ll decide what he wants to do. “I don’t suppose you have Batman in your world?”

That isn’t what Dean expected. 

“Wha- Batman?” He isn’t sputtering. Just surprised. “What? Like comic-book-hero playboy philanthropist billionaire Bruce Wayne Batman? You’re not a comic book nerd are you?”

The kid’s mouth is hanging open. “He’s a comic book character in your world?”

“Batman’s real in your world?” Dean is kinda excited by the prospect. He used to play Batman with Sammy when they were kids. Well, he played Batman. Sammy had no taste and always wanted to be Superman. He refused to be Robin, even when Dean tried to bribe him. 

Wait a minute.

“You- are too young to be Batman.” Dean stated the obvious

“Obviously,” the kid stated. He seemed proud. “My name’s Jason Todd. And I’m Robin.”

Dean doesn’t get to bother with movies often. But he did see that one. The one where the second Robin is murdered and comes back angry.

Sammy must never learn that in another world Dean was Robin and killed by a criminal clown. It just can’t happen. Sam has enough issues with clowns as it is. 

But there’s a lot of ‘Not Happening’ that Dean is behind right now.

“Pleased to meet you, Jason Todd.” He says. “Now come down here so we can get ourselves out of this place. We’ve been here too long already.”

Jason starts to climb down the tree, trust in every line of his body as he moves. 

“I hope you know,” Benny says gruffly. “That I’ve not got a clue what you and the Angle were talkin’ about and I’m still not certain why we’re keepin’ the Angle. But the kid’s human and nice- so if you and your wings cause me too many problems, I’m all in favor of droppin’ you both and usin’ the kid to get out of this place.”

“Wouldn’t work,” Cas says, equally gruff and with no shame in his eavesdropping. “He’s from a different world. He’d get you out but not back to your body.”

Benny drops another bad word just in time for the teenager to get close enough to hear it.

**Author's Note:**

> Selection from the part that was never really finished and never went anywhere:
> 
> Jason: Who was your first kiss?  
> Dean: Robin.  
> Jason: . . . was Robin a boy or girl?  
> Dean: Why would you assume that I might kiss a boy?  
> Jason: . . .  
> Dean: I think that this is enough introspection for today. We have a lot to think about. Let's just walk in silence forever.


End file.
